Is biglaw litigation dying out? Forum

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jkpolk

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Re: Is biglaw litigation dying out?

Post by jkpolk » Sun Mar 24, 2019 2:59 pm

objctnyrhnr wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
jkpolk wrote:
objctnyrhnr wrote:I have never understood why v50 and up pack their ranks with summer/first year associate’s such that they won’t have availability for post-clerkship hires (especially impressive ones). In other words, there are hundreds of fedclerks every year, many of whom are looking for new firms at the end of the clerkship. Would you rather have somebody with fedclerk credentials and possibly already a year or two of biglaw training or like 33%ile at wash u who summered with you?

Anyway I realize that’s slightly off topic, but just is something I’ve been thinking about.
Clerkship is an overrated credential just for working in biglaw. Like yeah, if you want to be a partner, work bigfed, actually go to court, etc. maybe useful (and firms will pick up a couple ppl like this) - but pretty much anyone can tag exhibits and do doc review and big law needs way more associates than trial partners.
I’m the above anon clerk and these are my thoughts as well.
Is the corrolary consensus then, also, that I’m imagining it when I picture gcs at potential client entities getting impressed when they see associates who have fedclerked in bios, in the same way that I picture them getting impressed when they see associates from YHS? This has always been a presumption of mine—that this matters to clients insofar as it constitutes a prestige stamp. That said, I have never worked in house and I have absolutely no evidence—anecdotal or otherwise—to back this up.
Your law firm and your experience will be the most "impressive" things and will be case by case wrt degree/clerkship (unless you clerk for scotus, were an olympic athlete, etc.). To be frank, not many GCs are going to give two shits about any of their outside-lawyers' bios (other than MAYBE the fancy pants BIG-NAME PARTNER leading the case).

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UnfrozenCaveman

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Re: Is biglaw litigation dying out?

Post by UnfrozenCaveman » Thu Oct 17, 2019 11:41 am

Look, corporate attorneys are paper-pushers/deal-herders. You make changes to agreements, run redlines, wait for the business people to respond, etc. Some practice areas are heavy on diligence, especially for juniors. All that means is that you look at a ton of agreements and make sure certain things are in there or otherwise adequately covered--like that an anti-assignment clause in an important vendor contract wouldn't be triggered by the deal. You maintain and update a bunch of checklists. You prepare signature packets, etc.

That's not to say that litigation is so lovely and lawyerly for someone who likes to research and write, which would seem to suggest that appellate litigation should be your focus (but that's getting even tougher to break into).

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nealric

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Re: Is biglaw litigation dying out?

Post by nealric » Tue Oct 22, 2019 1:46 pm

UnfrozenCaveman wrote:Look, corporate attorneys are paper-pushers.
Aren't all attorneys mostly paper pushers in one way or another?

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